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Personal Life

Mays was born in Bristol, Tennessee to Paulette and James Mays.[1] She has two older siblings.[1] She graduated from Grundy Senior High School in 1997, earned an associate degree at Southwest Virginia Community College in 1998, and attended Virginia Tech in Blacksburg for one year.[1] Mays graduated from Radford University in December 2000, and left for California.[1]

Career

Mays was on Joey, her television debut, in 2004 and in Red Eye, her film debut, in 2005. She went on to appear on How I Met Your Mother for two episodes between 2005 and 2013, on Heroes for five episodes between 2006 and 2009, and on Ugly Betty for eight episodes in between 2007 and 2008.

Mays was in The Smurfs in 2011 and its the sequel, The Smurfs 2 in 2013, she co-stared with former Glee co-star, Neil Patrick Harris.

She has a role on Glee since 2009, however Mays announced that the fifth season would be her last.[3] However, Mays was seen filming an episode of Season Six of Glee in November 2014. Mays revealed in "Metro" that her character departure wasn't her choice in October 2013.[4]

Mays was announced to be casted on The Millers in June 2013, and it premiered on September 27.[5]The Millers was cancelled in November 2014 after two seasons and twenty-eight episodes.[6]

Mays voices Dulcinea in the Netflix animated original The Adventures of Puss in Boots, it began to air in January 2015. She was casted in the Netflix original eight-episode series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp that will air in July 2015. Molly Shannon, Glee guest star, will also star in it. Mays was casted in Mena as Dana Sibota.[7][8]

Earlier in her television career she was a guest star on a season one episode of “How I Met Your Mother”, a show with Neil Patrick Harris apart of the cast. Year later, Harris appeared in a season one episode of “Glee”, a show with Jayma Mays apart of the cast. In 2011, they both stared in the screen adaption of “Smurfs”.

She worked with Matthew on the 2007 pilot Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office, he played Angela's friend and co-worker Brody.